Paradise
by Stephane Richer
Summary: Life goes on it gets so heavy; the wheel breaks the butterfly.


Paradise

Disclaimer: I own neither Tite Kubo's _Bleach_ nor Coldplay's "Paradise".

Like many strong heroes before him, Kuchiki Nobuo has the kind of angst-ridden backstory that sells tabloid magazines and creates an almost-electric atmosphere of gossip and enigma wherever he is. Unlike those strong heroes, he doesn't whine to everyone about how hard it is for him (because it truthfully could have been a hell of a lot worse than it was), and he doesn't really hold resentment or hate against anyone. A true Kuchiki if there ever was one, all things considered.

If he was his mother, he might do the same thing, after all. Fucking hollows. He'd be worse; he hadn't had half of the training she'd had. He'd have died, the same way his father did...well, no, not that. He'd have been mangled, ripped to pieces in five seconds. Put up a fight? Him? A hollow that could wreak that much damage...he is no conceit.

There is so much he wants to know about his parents, and asking someone else would just feel wrong. Besides, he doesn't really know anyone who knew his parents that well. It isn't that they hadn't had any friends, it is just that his parents' few friends have been MIA since around the time of the incidents. He was so young, and he had had no way of contacting them. He has looked through all of their things for address books or slips of paper, but there is never anything resembling a means of contact. He can't exactly ask the elders, either. They had looked after him until he grew enough sense and backbone to tell them to leave him the fuck alone, and that had not gone well. He could and would take care of his mother and himself better than they could or wanted to (why did they hate his mother? he wished he knew) and he hates, has always hated, the way they meddle needlessly.

He wants to ask about how his mother had actually killed that hollow. Even if she had gone insane doing it, she had done it. He wants to be stronger than that, to get rid of something so awful while still retaining his senses, but even to destroy it, regardless of one's own fate, is pure power.

It is still a while before he gets his answer. He knows he can and should be a powerful shinigami, but he worries constantly about his poor mother every second he is away from the house. They need seated officers, they tell him, they beg him to accept, and still he declines politely. All these seated officers have been in the human world since before he was born, and things keep getting more and more complicated.

Finally, one of them comes back, assuming the role of his captain from the acting captain (who is really the fourth seat). He is a crimson-haired man named Abarai Renji. He looks to be about Nobuo's mother's age. He must have, Nobuo realizes, been his father's lieutenant. He suppresses the thousands of questions that rise to the surface. He will find an opportune time later.

It doesn't take long. He's come home, is sipping tea and sitting with his mother. It is one of her better days, and though she does not recognize him she is mostly conscious and seems amused by the young man at her bedside. They drink tea and he reads to her from a novel with one of those resentful, angsty heroes as the protagonist.

The plot is just getting good when the one maid he keeps around knocks at the door.

"Yes?" he asks, looking up.

"Someone to see you, Rukia-dono."

She sits a little up. "Who is it?"

"Abarai Renji."

Her face goes white. "But..." she trails off. "Let him in."

"He's supposed to be on assignment in the human world," she says to Nobuo. "He said it could take him several years and he just went off."

Abarai had been in the human world for ninety-four years. That was a few years before Nobuo's birth. _So she's wished herself this far back in time?_

He opens the door; Nobuo is sure he knows of her condition (after all, he knows of Nobuo's father's death; he is certain that the captain has inquired into the cause). "Abarai-taicho," he says, standing up and bowing. Yet neither his captain nor his mother notices him.

"Renji?" his mother gasps. "You look so much older."

"Rukia..." His breath is jagged; his face is as pale as hers. "My god." In a moment, maybe less, he is by her side, clutching her hand, weeping openly. His mother looks confused; Nobuo feels this is way too intimate for him to stay, but it might get out of hand and he may need to calm his mother down.

"Please don't cry, Renji. I'm sure it couldn't have been that terrible over there. Did you see Ichigo?"

...strawberries? Well, okay. Maybe it was a code or something.

Her tone turns to alarm. "Is everything all right? Is he okay?"

Nobuo places his hand on the older man's arm. "Please, Abarai-taicho. Don't upset her. You can tell her _when she feels better_."

"But, if something happened-"

"It wouldn't do to make yourself sick. It can wait; there is no emergency." She narrows her eyes at him.

His captain agrees. "I just missed you too much, and I heard you were ill and got worried..."

Her face softens. "Thank you, Renji. You don't need to worry about me."

This time he (barely) keeps himself from crying.

They sit with her until she falls asleep a few hours later. Nobuo lets Renji tuck her in tightly. It seems to make him feel a bit better. They walk in silence to the garden.

"So, Kuchiki-kun," the older man begins. "You're a relative of hers? How long have you been taking care of her?"

"I'm her son," he says bluntly. "I kicked out the family elders a while back."

Renji is dumbstruck. "They didn't tell me...they only said that she had gone insane after a hollow killed Byakuya..."

Nobuo shrugs. "She killed the hollow. I can only imagine what it did to her."

They both shudder. "My god, kid," Renji continues. "How old were you?"

"Fairly young," Nobuo replies. Why do people always ask him so much about that incident relative to himself? Why couldn't they just get the information about his parents and be done with it? "You were her friend?"

He nods. "Since we were very young children. We grew up in the 78th district together."

Nobuo's eyes widen. _The 78th? But how...?_ No wonder his mother was so strong. If she had survived the 78th as a child and had gone on to become a powerful shinigami noblewoman...

"You never knew?"

"I don't know anything about my parents. No one's ever told me anything, even when I ask."

So they sit in the garden for hours, until the sun rises, with Nobuo's captain telling him all about his parents and Nobuo telling Renji all about the happenings in the Seireitei in the past century.

* * *

Because of Renji's position of captain, he gets exclusive access to new ideas and experiments. Usually he finds them stupid or irrelevant, but when he hears about the dream pills he has to get some. It takes a while for him to procure a dosage with instructions, but when he does he takes them straight to the Kuchiki mansion.

Rukia is not having a good day this time, and Renji really wonders how the kid can deal with this and keep a straight face and unwavering voice. Does this not affect him? Perhaps he is just numb after all this time. How awful. How could he have missed this? How could he have not been there to help his friends? He could have saved Byakuya and Rukia, could have sacrificed himself. They needed one another; he is alone.

"Give her the pill with the number one." His voice is so serious that Nobuo immediately complies. Renji gives the younger male his own pill and takes the last one himself. He feels woozy, and then, a few seconds later, they're in.

The world of Rukia's dreams is tough to navigate at first. Gravity is different; physics are all different. But they can sense her reiatsu, and the year or so of working together allows them to easily keep track of one another. There she is, in a plaza, one that rather resembles the Kuchiki garden. She is not young; she is as old as she is in real life; and Byakuya looks as old as he should had he survived.

Yes, he's here too, with her, caressing her, holding her close.

"Renji?" Byakuya asks. Something about him is a bit...off. Maybe it's the time that has passed, but, no. Renji realizes that this is Rukia's imagination. This is her dream; this is her Byakuya. She whirls around, gives him a look identical to the one on Byakuya's face. He is just an extension of her; of course their faces are the same. The invasion makes Byakuya crumble away like dust.

She gasps. "I..." but they are there beside her instantaneously.

She is crying, hugging Renji tightly. "Oh, please, Renji, you have to help me. I'm trapped here." She catches sight of Nobuo and draws back, unsure of his identity.

"Nobuo," he says, and she begins to cry harder.

She holds him, her grip as strong as any kido. "Oh, Nobuo, you've grown up and I've been trapped here and missed it; I'm so, so, sorry." He embraces her in return, reveling in the feeling that he'd almost forgotten.

"I love you, Mom." He's crying, too.

The moments are like hours to him.

She draws away. "Please, Renji."

He knows. He has feared that it would be like this, that she would make him do this.

"I should have died sixty years ago."

He unsheaths his sword. Nobuo closes his eyes. And in one moment, Rukia Kuchiki has been severed from the world of the dead, her soul going on to the next life, no longer tethered by a bitter, rotten thread.


End file.
